The English languare master's programme "Global Political Economy" (GPE) at the University of Kassel has received an award for its internationalisation. The European Consortium for Accreditation has conferred the Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation on the programme.

The GPE course of study focuses on a critical consideration of the economic, social, political and cultural aspects of globalisation and governance. It combines contet from the social and economic sciences. Students on the GPE programme benefit in particular from exchange with the international partner universities of the global network of the International Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD). This teaching and research network with headquarters at the University of Kassel has been active since 2009 to improve the understanding of the conditions that allow for productive employment and decent work in development situations.

The University has offered the "Global Political Economy" course of study since the winter semester 2003/2004. Currently it has 76 enrolled students from locations around the world representing countries from Argentina to Uzbekistan.  The Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation makes special mention of the international composition of the faculty and of the student body as well as the distinctive experiences, offerings and the substantial support the students receive from the University. The learning environment of the Programme was described as being international in an exemplary fashion. In its report the accrediting consortium summed up that "the programme has successfully realised internationalisation activities that make a clear contribution to the quality of teaching and learning."  The director of the programme Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherrer characterised this success as "an important seal of quality for the programme. Persons who enrol for this course of study know that they will benefit both form a scholarly and academic standpoints as well as a personal one. " This certification of the GPE master's programme follows another significant recent achievement of the ICDD, which has just received five million EUR in funding from the DAAD for a further five years.

 http://www.uni-kassel.de/einrichtungen/icdd/news.html

In 4 days: MOOC on “Workers' Rights in a Global Economy”

4 DAYS TO GO: Next week, on Monday 1st June 2015, we will start our MOOC on “Workers' Rights in a Global Economy”. We are very happy to see so many of you have enrolled. We are 2.000 right now, all interested in labour rights worldwide. This is great news!

As a first appetizer we invite you to look at this short text from the Global Labour Column, the multilingual blog on labour affairs in the Global Labour University network: http://www.global-labour-university.org/fileadmin/GLU_Column/papers/no_46_Hoffer.pdf

We are looking forward to meeting you online soon!

Register here: https://iversity.org/en/courses/workers-rights-in-a-global-economy

Public lecture on "Decent Work along the Agricultural Value Chain"

by Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherrer (University of Kassel) and Prof. Dr. Praveen Jha, (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

When: 27 May, 6 pm
Where: ICDD, Seminar room, Kleine Rosenstraße 1-3, 34117 Kassel

Small-holders and plantation workers receive only a tiny part of the value added in a value chain; e.g. cocoa farmers in Ghana capture only about 4% of the final value of a chocolate bar. They also lack social protection, are exposed to toxic chemicals and face powerful buyers. Economic upgrading is not enough; it has to be accompanied by social upgrading.
What are the obstacles, what are promising strategies to overcome the decent work deficit along agricultural value chains?

http://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/studium/campus-leben/veranstaltungen-termine/termin.html?tx_cal_controller%5Bview%5D=event&tx_cal_controller%5Btype%5D=tx_cal_phpicalendar&tx_cal_controller%5Buid%5D=5872&tx_cal_controller%5Blastview%5D=view-month%7Cpage_id-39468&tx_cal_controller%5Byear%5D=2015&tx_cal_controller%5Bmonth%5D=05&tx_cal_controller%5Bday%5D=27&cHash=49bcb948ca25ad2c87fdc09c279c69a5

"The future of world trade"

"Christoph Scherrer fundamentally criticizes the world trade order. From the perspective of developing countries, a total opening has never proven to be the best way: China, which has only opened selectively is the best example. For the “weak”, he considers a democratization of the political process as essential. "

Read the whole article in German here: https://ftdwirtschaftswunder.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/zeitgesprc3a4ch.pdf

Die Zukunft des Welthandels

Holger Görg, Martin Klein, Michael Pflüger, Oliver Krebs, Christoph Scherrer

95. Jahrgang, 2015, Heft 5, S. 303-318

DOI: 10.1007/s10273-015-1825-8